Prime Minister-elect Tony Abbott has arrived in Canberra to take the reins of the incoming Coalition government, as Labor vows to move on from the tensions of the Rudd-Gillard era.

The Coalition is on track for a 32-seat majority after wresting a swathe of seats from Labor and independents in Tasmania, New South Wales and Victoria in Saturday's poll.

Mr Abbott has begun forming his new front bench team, so far confirming Joe Hockey will be treasurer, deputy Liberal Party leader Julie Bishop will be foreign affairs minister and Nationals leader Warren Truss will become infrastructure and transport minister.

Ms Bishop says the Coalition plans a "very orthodox and methodical" transition of power with frontbench positions to be finalised in coming days, after the election results are confirmed.

"I understand that Mr Rudd has tendered his resignation to the Governor-General and in the usual course of things, he will remain as caretaker prime minister until there is an opportunity to swear-in Tony Abbott as prime minister and his ministry," Ms Bishop told the ABC last night.

"There will be a party room meeting at some point to reaffirm the leadership of Tony Abbott and me and the National Party will no doubt hold a similar party room meeting, and then we will decide on the ministry and hopefully be able to swear in the ministry early next week.

"We are focusing on the immediate transition to Government so that we can get on with the business of implementing our policies and the promises we took to the election as soon as possible."

However, she said it is unclear when Parliament will resume.

Nobody could be in any doubt that that was the Coalition's major policy ... and we would expect the Labor Party to respect that decision of the Australian people.

Ms Bishop says while the Senate results will be "interesting", whatever the result, the incoming government has a clear mandate from voters to implement its policies.

"There's no doubt that the election was a referendum on the carbon tax - one of our major policies is to repeal the carbon tax," she said.

"Nobody could be in any doubt that that was the Coalition's major policy amongst others and we would expect the Labor Party to respect that decision of the Australian people."

The incoming foreign affairs minister says she has already had a number of phone calls from major trading partners and allies and expects to receive briefings on the situation in Syria and the United Nations Security Council once she returns to Canberra.

Wong blames internal division for election defeat

As the Coalition divides the spoils of victory, Labor is left to decide who will lead the party in Opposition after former prime minister Kevin Rudd announced he would stand aside after the election defeat.

Outgoing finance minister Penny Wong has joined the chorus of other Labor figures blaming more than three years of leadership instability on the party’s resounding election loss.

"We did do a lot of things when it comes to making sure we created more fairness and more opportunity, whether through education, through the increases in childcare, whether it's through the improvements to Medicare and, of course, the building of DisabilityCare just to name a few," she told ABC TV.

We're a party of Government and we're a party that also is a party of strong values and a very strong focus on the future so I don't believe in simply a blank slate.

Penny Wong

"Not to mention the national broadband network and the infrastructure of the 21st century but the reality was that that story was overshadowed and drowned out by too much discussion of our internals.

"It's in our interests and in the nation's interests for us to draw a line here and move on."

Following Mr Rudd's return to the Labor leadership in June, the Caucus approved new leadership election rules which stipulate that unless there is only one candidate, the new parliamentary leader is to be elected jointly by party members and by caucus, with each given equal weight of 50 per cent.

Senator Wong refused to be drawn on who she would support for the role and says the discussions about leadership should be held behind closed doors.

However, she says despite the weekend's electoral drubbing, whoever becomes leader should not dump all of Labor's policies - putting the party on a collision course with the new government.

"We're a party of Government and we're a party that also is a party of strong values and a very strong focus on the future so I don't believe in simply a blank slate," she said.

"I said last night, very clearly, on carbon I don't believe we should be for the turning.

"Climate change hasn't gone away just because Tony Abbott got elected and my view is it's a very important principle for the Labor Party to continue to have a also that deals properly with climate change."

Former Labor members weigh-in on party reform

Retired senior members of the ousted Labor government says the emphasis of the new leadership team must be on overhauling the party.

Former climate change minister Greg Combet says the party needs to highlight the party's record in government to ensure leadership tensions are not the hallmark of the party's six years on the treasury benches.

"The very important lesson that we all know in theory and we've learned again in practice and that means that people have got to learn from it and it cannot continue - you can't have disunity," he said.

"The great reforms that we made should have been the focus and would have been a platform for a further term in government and it is important that everyone in the Labor movement learns from that and doesn't tolerate it again."

A key backer of former prime minster Julia Gillard, Mr Combet also called on Mr Rudd to leave the parliament in a bid to foster unity.

Former Labor leader and senior minister Simon Crean backed calls for the party to learn from its mistakes of the last six years in government and nominated outgoing education minister Bill Shorten as the man lead the party.

"The Labor Party's problem over the last three years is that it looked at its political fortunes just through the prism of the leader," he said.

"I think we've got to understand here's the opportunity to reinvigorate, to refresh, to present a new approach and put the in-fighting that was Gillard-Rudd behind us. Just draw the line and move forward."

Mr Crean, who supported Mr Rudd's return to the party leadership in June, says the electoral defeat can also partly to attributed to the government's poor campaign.

"Tony Abbott's not Prime Minister because of any great vision he had for the country, in fact I don't know what his vision for the country is," he said.

"He was a disciplined campaigner and Labor's campaigner and Labor's campaign wasn't that crash hot. I think most people acknowledge that."

Senator Wong, who was Labor's campaign spokesperson, refused to comment analysis of the recent election campaign.